But there are still some stirrings of activity on the casino front. For starters, Bwin.Party has agreed to fork over $15 million to Kentucky. According to the company the payment “resolves the only remaining litigation … that stems from our pre-UIGEA U.S. activities.” Although he’s been a failure at bringing terrestrial casinos to Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear (D, right) has a good track record of extracting settlements from Internet casinos. More significantly, this settlement is expected to clear the path for Bwin.Party to start offering online gambling in Nevada and New Jersey. That’s pretty significant since its partners are a couple of little outfits called MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming. You may have heard of them. Earlier this week, PokerStars ditched the Atlantic Club in favor of Resorts Atlantic City, although it might continue its quixotic quest to wrest the Atlantic Club from Colony Capital, no matter how badly Colony suddenly doesn’t want to sell.
Nevada has “Trailer Stations” but now Atlantic City has a “pop-up” casino. Coming soon to a city near you (if you live on the East Coast), it’s a 40′ by 14′ by 10′, 6.5-ton, two-story, mock casino where you can play simulated table games, get a brief massage, spin platters and see replications of various Boardwalk amenities. Atlantic City Alliance President Liz Cartmell told The Press of Atlantic City that the casino-on-wheels “was needed to generate a huge buzz and stand out from the clutter.” Well, I think they’ve accomplished that.
Clean slate. Safety procedures at Cirque du Soleil‘s Ka have been above 
and beyond the call of duty (unlike those of Criss Angel vehicle Believe). This makes last weekend’s death of aerialist Sarah Guillot-Gayard all the more puzzling. If anything, Cirque was “overly cautious.” On the other side of town, violence has marred the El Super Classico football tournament at Sam Boyd Stadium. Both Las Vegas Metro and multiple other constabularies had to scramble 120 officers to contain 400 soccer hooligans. The latter, fans of both Chivas Guadalajara and Club America exchanged fusilades of bottles and rocks before the game and stormed the field after it ended in a 1-0 blowout by Chivas. Soccer? Rioting? In Las Vegas? Color me shocked.
A decade of patience on the part of Station Casinos paid off when
California Gov. Jerry Brown affixed his signature to a bill approving the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians‘ off-reservation casino. It’s a process Station has been shepherding since 2003. The North Fork band slipped through a loophole in federal law and we should expect other California tribes to attempt to follow suit.
Remember James Packer? Well, after a thoroughly disastrous attempt to crack the U.S. casino market he’s pulled back to the territories he knowsbest: Australia and the Pacific Rim. At the moment, he’s cleared the first two hurdles in a New South Wales approval process for a Sydney casino. Opening of $1.2 billion Crown Sydney Hotel Resort would probably take place in 2019, when Echo Entertainment‘s monopoly expires. At the same time, casino tax rates in NSW will fall from 50% to 29%. Since Packer’s casino is projected to create more revenue for the state, it was understandably preferred to Echo’s proposal to double down: Creating an ‘open market’ of two casinos, of which it would own both. You might say the company was offering Sydney not a choice but an Echo.
